This invention relates to a coreless winding method and apparatus and, more particularly, to one that produces products without cores using small diameter mandrels on a continuous basis to develop retail size logs from jumbo parent rolls.
It is known that toilet tissue is being produced using cores with glue applied to the exterior. This is done with both center and surface rewinders--see, for example, co-owned U.S. Pat. RE. No. 28,353 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,828,195, respectively. Going back a long time, tissue products were produced on stop-start rewinders using small mandrels which were surface driven. Still another process is center winding without cores by using a mandrel that collapses after the completion of the wind cycle as seen in U.K. Patent No. 1,554,619 but which does not permit small diameter mandrels.
According to the invention, the winding is performed at alternating positions. This permits the use of small mandrels because each mandrel can be supported at multiple points along its length. Also, the finished wound roll can be decelerated and ejected from the machine while the opposing wind station is winding the next log.
The concept of alternate winding is old per se but not for finished size logs. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,894,253 winds the jumbo rolls alternately--but with a web being delivered from the paper making machine. More particularly, the web being wound into alternate jumbo rolls comes continuously from the last pass of the calendar stack of the paper making machine. This jumbo size roll has not been cut into retail roll lengths, as in the invention--but instead is taken to a converting area for rewinding into retail diameter logs which are then transversely severed by log saws. So there was no point in removing the winding reels from the jumbo log since these reels were needed to support the jumbo rolls in the rewinder. Other forms of surface winders can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,256,269 and co-owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,588,138 but neither of these dispenses with a core, as in the instant invention.
Other objects and advantages of the invention may be seen in the details of construction and operation set forth in the ensuing specification.